Last Laugh: Live! Nude! Sea cows!

Comedy and the law don't always have a good relationship. Yesterday I wrote about Universal Music threatening the Bank of America over two employees "reimagining" U2's One as a corporate anthem.

Today, litigation paranoia has resulted in a hilarious website spun off from a throwaway line on Conan O'Brien's tonight show.

Last week, O'Brien's show did a sketch about silly sports team mascots. One of the mascots was "the Webcam Manatee" - a sea cow rubbing itself in a lewd manner. At the end of the sketch, O'Brien remarked that the manatee could be seen on "hornymanatee.com".

And that's where it gets weird. At the time, and unsurprisingly, Hornymanatee.com didn't exist. But because O'Brien mentioned the web address on air, NBC were worried that, if someone registered the domain name and then put objectionable content on the site, the network could be liable for promoting it (remember Nipplegate?).

So, immediately after the show went to air, NBC went out and bought Hornymanatee.com for US $159. O'Brien, who claims the web address was adlibbed, decided there was no point in wasting a good domain name.

The result? Hornymanatee.com is now THE site for all your manatee porn needs. As well as featuring people dressed as manatees in suggestive poses, there's also a huge "fan art" section.

The site has had millions of hits over the past few days, and O'Brien has revisited the topic on his show several times. And all because NBC was scared of litigation.